Helpers and Christmas

Helpers and Christmas

Hi All

What's the deal at Christmas? Do you buy your helper a Christmas gift from your child? Do you give them a pay rise? i also heard that you have to give them an extra month's pay at Christmas - is this true?

we have had the same helper for almost 5 years. we have always given her: $500 in her christmast card, a few small gifts (we once gave her a dvd player from DCS ~$250) and some chocolates in her stocking. we usually give her bath products (it's become a joke in our house!) and she gets enough "luxury" to last the year (bath salts, scrubs, moisturisers, exfoliators etc)...

we've NEVER given a whole month's pay... we can't afford it.

we DO always invite her to have new year's eve dinner with us (we go all out on seafood: lobster, king prawns, alaskan king crab etc)

As she's only been with you for a few months, I think a gift is fine. We normally give cash $500 or a nice gift (last year it was tv for her room). We also give cash for birthdays (D's and her's), CNY, Diwali. In the end it adds up to a month's pay.

we never give gifts, only cash. i am definitely sure she would prefer cash. last christmas we gave $1000 HKD, but depending on how long she's been with you and your feelings about her performance, I think anything between $500 - $1000 HKD is more than generous. In addition to Christmas, we give her cash on CHinese New Year's and Mother's Day (random, but my husband started it since she's a mom of two). For her bday, I actually just remembered I made her 7 pairs of shorts in Shenzhen and my son painted her picture which she loved.

As our helper has only been with us a few months we definitely will only give her a token gift for Christmas--maybe a warm sweater as she's so cold here in HK. The reason for this is that we barely give each other gifts at Christmastime--my son gets one big gift and sometimes, if we remember/have time my husband and I exchange gifts. Same thing with birthdays. So, to us, Christmas (and all holidays) are more about the actual meaning of the holiday than the gifts--more about spending time together and having a good meal or something. I feel more comfortable about keeping business as business and at the end of one-year's employment (next September) we'll give a year-end bonus of an amount we feel is appropriate.

We usually give a cash gift for various occasions, but will sometimes include a thoughtful "gift" gift - Hari Raya, Christmas and Chinese New Year as well as her birthday. It's no more/less extravagant that what we would give other members of our family.